The present invention relates to tasking systems and methods supporting user interfaces for displaying objects, the displayed objects enabling user access to resources that provide for effecting tasks among a system and devices of the system's environment. More particularly, the present invention relates to tasking systems and methods having the foregoing features, wherein the systems support dynamic and adaptive clustering operations respecting such objects so as to enhance effecting of the associated tasks, such clustering operations responding to context.
Universal remotes are known. These remotes typically provide for controlling an environment and devices thereof. To do so, the remotes transmit, e.g., commands based on standardized communication protocols, which commands correspond to control functions and operations of the controlled devices. Generally, the remotes have compact dimensions, so as enable the user to easily grasp and hold the remote in one hand.
Conventional universal remotes tend to rely principally on permanent keys. The keys typically are dedicated in that each corresponds to a particular function or operation of one external device. As such, the keys generally have permanent legends that identify the correspondence. Moreover, the number of keys is constrained by the remotes' compact, physical dimensions.
Some universal remotes employ screens, such as liquid crystal displays. Generally, these screens enable the remotes to be programmed. In one category, the screen provides a programmable legend to accompany a programmable, permanent (i.e., hard) key. In another category, the screen provides both a programmable legend and a programmable, virtual (i.e., soft) key—the virtual key being implemented as an icon displayed on the screen, the icon being actuable through the screen's touch sensitivity. In both categories, the number of keys typically remains constrained by the remote's compact dimensions, particularly due to the screen's limited dimensions. Moreover, once the keys are programmed, the keys and their respective legends typically are effectively permanent with respect to their disposition and their correspondence to an external device's function/operation. This permanence applies, at least in a presentation sense, where the programmed keys are organized in conventional menus.
A universal remote's efficacy is characterized, generally, by the number of devices (and associated functions/operations) the remote can simultaneously support. That is, on a first level, a remote's efficacy tends to increase with increases in the number of available keys. However, the number of keys and, therefore, the remote's efficacy tend to be limited by the remote's dimensional constraints.
Moreover, a remote's efficacy tends to plateau and even diminish, respectively, as the number of keys rises to, and then exceeds, some ergonomic threshold. That is, on a second level, a remote's efficacy may cease to increase once the number of keys leads to user perception of unacceptable burden and/or complexity. Indeed, with actual or perceived burden and complexity, a remote's efficacy will tend to diminish, particularly if the users' inclination and ability to use the remote declines. Such efficacy problems may not be overcome entirely by employing programmable keys, including virtual keys organized in conventional menus, in that, e.g., these solutions may simply be insufficient to counteract perceptions of, or actual, burden and complexity.
Conventional universal remotes also fall short in the types of products and product categories that they support. Supported devices typically are limited to TVs, VCRs, receivers, audio CD players and other audio and video equipment. In addition, however, devices increasingly will include many more products from a broader range of categories. The devices may, or already, include, without exhaustion, home air conditioning/heating systems and controllers therefor, lighting systems, personal computers and peripherals, home and automobile security systems, kitchen appliances, and other home, business, automobile, and entertainment products and systems.
As another example, supported devices are coming to include, or already include, resources that generally have not been so included. These resources include, without exhaustion, (i) web browsers and other communication clients and/or applications (e.g., capable of delivering, transmitting, processing and otherwise supporting electronic program guides, data, email, voice, or other media/information), (ii) communication connections (e.g., switched, cellular and IP telephony; Internets; Intranets; hypertext services, such as the World Wide Web; and LANs, WANs and other networks), and (iii) software applications (e.g., note pads, planners, and input facilities).
Some of these resources, particularly those that are communication- or computing-related, seem to be becoming ubiquitous. This, of itself, may engender problems, including the physical location of any remote. As an example, the computing-related resources are now available, or are becoming available, in compact form factors, e.g., personal digital assistants (PDAs), such as the VELO and NINO by Philips Electronics and PALM PILOT by 3Com. As another example, embedded electronics—in the form of a processor, a program and other hardware and software—empower engineers to add communication and computing capabilities essentially throughout a user's environment. In either case, conventional remotes would tend to be inadequate for providing sufficient access of/to these resources. In each case, a conventional remote not only fails to support the environmental devices, but presents problems as to how to implement the remote (e.g., location) even if support were to be provided.
Conventional universal remotes have additional shortcomings. As an example, the remotes generally do not provide for receiving signals, e.g., from and about the supported devices. As another example, other than the legends associated with the keys, these remotes tend to omit facility for conveying information to users—visual, audible or otherwise—pertaining arty to an applicable environment or the supported devices therein. These remotes, in particular, typically fail to provide adequately, if at all, for displaying or otherwise conveying relevant (e.g., locationally relevant or dependent) information to the user.
While conventional remotes may have shortfalls, other solutions tend to combine advantages with limitations. For example, instead of a conventional remote, a PDA may be configured (a) to support one or more standard infrared communication capabilities and (b) to display, via a user interface, a large variety of touch-sensitive icons, typically in a conventional hierarchy of menus, as well as other features provided by an applicable, commercial operating system (“OS”). However, with any such OS, to work with even a small number of supported devices and/or functions/operations, the user may need to open multiple menus or step through a plurality of other OS features, in order to access any particular function/operation of any particular environmental device. This is undesirable because, as menus and features are opened to activate a function/operation, a PDA's screen tends to become ever more cluttered due to its limited dimensions, such clutter making it increasingly difficult for the user to navigate to and activate other devices or functions/operations. Moreover, this navigational difficulty tends to overwhelm users seeking to activate several functions/operations simultaneously or in sequence.
Accordingly, there is a need to overcome problems inherent in apparatus, systems and methods for tasking supported devices in an environment, including those problems of the prior art as described above, so as to enable enhanced and new functionality, particularly in the event of plural supported devices, each tending to have associated therewith plural functions/operations.